Fairy Stories, Or Three Men Susan Never Loved
by Animus Wyrmis
Summary: At St. Finbar’s, Susan tells the girls fairy stories before bed, and Lucy remembers how they really went. Susan/Rabadash, Susan/Caspian, Susan/Geeky Kid. Blended movieverse and bookverse.


_Anyone who has been at school with a teller of stories knows what the wonder means—how he or she is followed about and besought in a whisper to relate romances; how groups gather round and hang on the outskirts of the favored party in the hope of being allowed to join in and listen. (_A Little Princess_, by Frances Hodgson Burnett, Chapter Five.)_

oOo

"What did you do after your French?" Susan asked. She was sitting on Lucy's bed, with Lucy wriggling at her feet. "Oh, hold still, Lu, I've got to get these tangles out," Susan said, running the hairbrush through her curls once more.

"Then we had to do maths," Lucy said, finally holding her head still. "And it was terribly difficult, Susan, I hate maths. All that stuffy old division, and I can never remember my multiplication past seven times seven is forty-five."

"Forty-nine," Susan interrupted.

"Is it?" Lucy asked. "I can never remember. But I think I remember that I _could_, back in Narnia."

"You could do a lot of things back in Narnia," Susan reminded her—reminded them both, perhaps. "We could ride, remember? For miles and miles. And remember when the mermaids taught us to sing? And when the naiads taught you to swim?"

"I remember," Lucy said, smiling. She turned toward Susan, and Susan let the brush drop from her fingers. "Remember the time the Calormene dancers came to court? And that one—what was her name? She fell in love with Sir Francis and stayed with us?"

"Alamis," Susan answered, smiling a little. She remembered Alamis as a slim, dark-haired girl with dancing eyes and a quick wit. She had been one of Susan's ladies-in-waiting for perhaps five years. "She hated our winters. And she never could get used to eating butter on her bread."

"I remember that!" Lucy cried. "And she used to make jokes, all the time. She'd say that Narnians had no concept of jokes or story-telling, and that our poetry was no good—"

"Because they never had morals at the end," Susan finished. "She used to tell us stories before bed, do you remember that? And we would always ask for the ones about Zardeenah, because they were so interesting. But she would never tell them to married women, or men."

"And do you remember when she finally married? And her father came all the way up from Calormen to meet Sir Francis and stayed for a year, so he could see his first grandson?"

"Corradin," Susan said quietly. "Nine pounds and screaming. Francis wanted to name him Edmund but Alamis wouldn't agree to it."

"She had to give up her home," Lucy protested after a moment. "It seemed fair to me."

"Maybe you're right," Susan admitted. "That does seem fair." But the smile had gone out of Lucy's face, and Susan felt it had gone from her own as well. Alamis had had to leave her home behind, but the two of them had had to give up a whole world, twice. Three times, Susan thought, if you counted their last adventure. Although they hadn't had to give up Narnia the same way, this time; their Narnia was already gone.

"Do you think she was happy?" Lucy asked quietly. She sounded a little bit as if she were about to cry.

"What do you mean, Lucy?" Susan asked, slipping down to the floor and putting an arm around her sister.

"It's just—we went back—and everyone was _gone_. And I tried to see if any records were left, I checked with some of the trees and the library and Doctor Cornelius, but no one knew anything. About our court, I mean. I couldn't find out about Tumnus or the Beavers or _anyone_, and I just…I just wondered if they were happy."

Susan sighed. "I don't know, Lu," she admitted. "I like to think they were. I like to think that Alamis and Francis had two more children, a girl and another boy, and that the boys were knighted and the girl was beautiful and graceful and kind, and that they helped Aravis and Cor forge a stronger alliance between Narnia and Archenland and Calormen. I like to think that Tumnus lived happily for the rest of his life in his little cave. And that Mr. and Mrs. Beaver had five children and that the Beavers didn't die out until much later."

"I'm sure Aravis and Cor got married," Lucy agreed, sniffling a little. "And maybe they had children. Maybe they had two, a prince and a princess, and maybe the princess liked to go into battle like me. Maybe she was as good an archer as you, Susan."

"Maybe," Susan allowed. "Maybe they had dances and romps and great feasts and Aslan came to—to help, when things got dangerous."

"And roared," Lucy agreed, sounding only a little happier. "And shook his mane, and—do you think any of the other queens got to ride on his back, Susan?"

"I don't know," Susan had to say. She felt, as Lucy's elder sister, that she should say something to the effect of _Aslan isn't a tame lion, Lucy; you know that. If he'd ever wanted other queens to ride on his back, then they would have, and it's not our place to question that. You don't have a monopoly on Aslan._ Except that Lucy did, in a sense; at least she understood him better than anyone else. And Susan understood. "Maybe. But no one else sat with him that night. No one else untied his ropes. We'll always have that."

"Yes," Lucy admitted unhappily. "We'll always have that."

Susan had opened her mouth to say something else, something comforting, when the door creaked open and a tiny redhead with glasses walked in, trailed by a shy-looking girl with long hair in braids. "Hullo," the redhead said despondently.

"Hi," Lucy replied, and then (after Susan had elbowed her sharply), "This is my sister Susan. Susan, this is Emma and that's Katharine."

"Hi," Emma said, and Katharine nodded.

"Hello," Susan answered. "How are you two settling in?" Susan, personally, despised new girls (except for Lucy; Lucy was wonderful), but that didn't mean she couldn't try to be friendly. She just wished they wouldn't cry so much.

"I miss my mum," Emma confessed, sitting on the floor across from Susan with her knees drawn up to her chin. Katharine sat next to her and leaned her head on Emma's shoulder. "I miss my dog."

"There are too many people," Katharine whispered.

Inwardly, Susan rolled her eyes. Were they young for their age, or was her sister just very old? "You can write to your mother," she suggested to Emma. "I'm sure she'd like to hear from you." She had no suggestions for Katharine; shyness was not a luxury Susan had ever been able to afford. "And you'll make friends soon enough. Once you start talking with the girls, they'll feel more familiar."

"Lucy tells us stories," Emma offered. "Fairy stories."

Susan shot Lucy a swift, sharp look. "What sort of fairy stories?"

"About a country where animals can talk," Emma elaborated vaguely.

"Susan tells them better," Lucy said loyally.

"Would you tell us one?" Emma asked, and Katharine picked up her head and managed to look both interested and pitiful all at once. "Sometimes Lucy says they're true."

Susan shut her eyes for a moment. "All right," she said, "I'll tell you one." Anything to prevent a conversation about Narnia with these strangers. She took a moment to think of a story that wouldn't take too long to tell, or hurt too much. "Once upon a time," she said finally (wasn't that how fairy stories were supposed to go? Susan wasn't sure; she hadn't liked them before Narnia, and she liked them even less now), "there was a beautiful princess who lived in a castle by the sea. She lived with her two brothers and her sister, and they ruled the kingdom wisely and well; but none of them were married. Now, as you all know, there is great pressure on a princess to marry." They didn't all know it; in fact, only Susan and Lucy knew how much pressure there was upon a princess (or a queen) to marry. But Susan ignored this, and plowed on. "And so, one spring, the king called his brother and sisters together and said, 'Fair Consorts, let us talk together and discuss a matter which plagues me greatly; namely, that if any harm or foul were to befall us, none would remain alive to take our place.'

"'Sir,' said the others, 'even so let us do so.' For the three of them were the king's younger siblings, and they trusted him to rule over them as they ruled over the country. And because they trusted him so, they agreed immediately that one of them must marry, and marry quickly.

"It is much easier, you will find, to marry off a princess than a prince or a king; for you can hold a tournament for the hand of a princess, and princes and knights of all sorts will flock to it." Susan paused, and Lucy squeezed her hand. Susan knew they were both remembering that last tournament, where Susan had almost lost her heart (and Edmund his head). "So the king sent forth messengers to the four winds, to go over land and over sea, to invite any with royal blood to compete for the hand of whichever sister would have him. And in six months' time, the four siblings were ready to receive three hundred suitors from the four corners of the world.

"The first day of the tournament, the two princesses sat under a quilted canopy with their brothers. The elder princess dropped her handkerchief to start the match and pretended not to notice when it was caught by a dark-haired knight who carried a scimitar. On his shield was a desert jasmine flower. But the younger princess noted that her sister was looking away from him, and she noted that he was looking towards her, and she wondered.

"The knight with the scimitar and the jasmine flower on his shield rode with his face covered, and for that reason no one knew who he was, but only that he came from one of the southern empires. The king muttered about propriety, and the prince called him a coward, and the young princess wondered if he had spots; but the elder princess thought only that he must want to prove himself with his sword, not his face or his family, and she liked him better for it. And on that day he defeated all the men who challenged him, and it was the talk of the court how brave he was, and how skilled. On the second day it was more of the same, and the third, until he had defeated all of the knights and princes and kings. And on that day, which was the seventh day of the tournament, the people clamored for him to remove his helmet, but he refused. And the prince and the king called him to them, to declare him the winner, and the king said, 'Good sir, you have shown yourself to be the best and bravest of men, and worthy to be a knight. Will you now remove your helmet, that we may see your face?'

"But the knight with the scimitar and the jasmine flower on his shield refused. 'O most gracious of kings,' he began, 'know that I may not remove my helmet, for I have sworn a sacred vow to remain so clad until your green and flourishing land is united with my own desert country in a marriage. For until your royal sister, shining jewel that she is, consents to become my wife (though I do not deserve her, O prince of princes and O king among kings, being but a dog next to her who shines like a goddess), I am forced to wander the land, accursed and alone.'"

"Ooh," whispered Emma. "How romantic of him!"

Susan looked her straight in the eyes and wondered. "The king smiled and said, 'My lord, I would hate to give my sister to a man who did not deserve her,' and the prince frowned and said, 'We do have two sisters.'

"The knight with the scimitar and the jasmine flower on his shield bowed to both women. 'A thousand pardons,' he said to the younger princess, 'for you are a golden flower among women, but it is your sister with whom I have fallen in love.' And the younger princess laughed and said that it was all right; she could only ever love a more straightforward man. But the elder princess remained silent. 'Your Highness,' the knight with the scimitar and the jasmine flower on his shield said to her, 'know that I love you more than I have ever loved a woman before, and if I cannot marry you the sun will appear dark in my eyes.' But still the elder princess was silent.

"Now, the prince was loath to give his sister to a man they had never seen, and the king was loath to ally the kingdom to an unknown land. The younger princess said, 'Mayhap, good sir, you would remove your mask? My sister would prefer to see your face, I am sure.'

"But the knight with the scimitar and the jasmine flower on his shield only shook his head. 'Not for you, dear princess, nor for your brothers. For I have sworn a vow before Tash the inexorable, the irresistible, and the Tisroc (may he live forever), and I will not break it until your sister accepts me as her husband.'

"'You ask a great deal of me,' the elder princess said, speaking for the first time.

"'Yes,' said the knight with the scimitar and the jasmine flower on his shield. And he looked at her, and she looked at him; the look in the prince's eyes said _I will love you, _and the look in the princess's eyes said _I know_.

"'Very well,' the princess said. 'Remove your helmet, sir, and I will marry you.'

And the knight with the scimitar and the jasmine flower on his shield did, and all saw him to be the heir-apparent of an empire called Calormen, far to the south; a rich desert country famed for their spices and their stories. And the king gave his permission, and the prince and the princess were married within the month. And they lived happily for the rest of their lives." For a moment, the room was silent; Susan was aware that Emma and Katharine were watching her curiously, and Lucy was staring at her with wide eyes. Then Emma and Katharine burst into applause. Susan swallowed. "We'll be late for dinner," she said finally.

Emma and Katharine were hungry enough to practically run through the corridors, but Lucy took Susan's hand, and they lagged behind. "Susan," Lucy said hesitantly after a few moments of silence, "did you—love him that much?"

"Oh, Lucy," Susan sighed. "He was very grand and very handsome, and in fairy stories, that's all that matters. In real life, it's…"

"Different," Lucy finished for her. "Harder."

oOo

The news that the Pevensie girls would tell fairy stories to all listeners spread like wildfire, and before the month was out, Susan had acquired a following. Personally, she thought that Lucy was the better storyteller, but Lucy lacked Susan's ability to reshape events so they told better and to cut herself out completely. Lucy's stories were truer, and Susan preferred them, but Susan's stories were happier and safer, and the girls of St. Finbarr's liked them better for that.

The first snowstorm of the year found Susan stretched out on Lucy's bed, teaching Emma O'Leary how to apply lipstick. Emma was making a mess of it, but Susan resisted rolling her eyes. She hadn't gotten it right the first time she had tried, either. "Here, like this," she said, demonstrating. "Don't overdo it."

"I know," Emma said, even though she very obviously didn't. "Can we have a story tonight, Susan?"

"Oh, please?" Beth Warren begged. "You haven't done one in days, Susan!" Beth, who was two years older than Lucy, had started coming to these impromptu sessions weeks ago—and then she had brought her roommates along.

"Oh, honestly, just do one, Su," Heather told her, her tone carefully cultivated to sound terribly bored. Heather was in her last year at St. Finbarr's, and she was easily the most beautiful girl at school ("Not," Lucy always hastened to say, "so beautiful as you were, Susan," but Susan wasn't sure that mattered). "I don't know why you want to spend time with such _little _kids."

"You can leave," Lucy said, standing up and looking Heather in the eye. "We certainly don't want you here if you don't want to be here, do we, girls?"

None of the other girls in Lucy's year were brave enough to back her up, so Susan said, "I spend time here because I enjoy it, Heather. Why don't you take a seat?"

"No. Thanks," Heather said, and leaned against the wall. "Go ahead and tell them a bedtime story, Susan."

Susan ignored her careless tone of voice. Normally Heather Preston wouldn't be caught dead in the company of nine-year-olds. "Give me a minute to think of one," she said instead. She had been worried, when she first started telling them stories, that she would run out, but it seemed like there was always something else to say, some other part of her life before to plunder. "Once upon a time," she started finally, "there were two kings and two queens. The youngest was the Queen Rose, and the eldest was the King Michael, and in between were King Edward and Queen…" she trailed off for a moment, trying to think of another name for herself. The other three were easy; they weren't so connected to their names, somehow.

"Heather," Heather suggested blandly.

"Caroline," put in Anne Featherstone, rolling over onto her stomach and resting her head on her arms.

"Lucy," said Marjorie (Marjorie was Heather's little sister; Susan didn't think much of her). "That's a nice name."

"Sylvia," Lucy said. "Queen Sylvia."

Susan smiled at her sister and reached to take her hand. "And Queen Sylvia," she agreed. "And they lived in a beautiful castle on the sea, where they held dances and tournaments and feasts. But one year, a terrible witch came upon the land. She sought control of it and its people, and she sought to take the Cair from the four who rightfully ruled it. And when they forced her back and she saw she could not win, she caused snow to fall on the green fields and ice to form on the blue-green waters. And no one could well survive. So the kings and queens sought help in all corners of the land, until finally they were forced to admit they could see no way to defeat the Witch save the help of a magical Lion, practically a legend in that country. But they could not call the Lion to them, for he was not a tame lion of the sort you often see in tales. So they called together all the court magicians, the centaurs and the wise dryad women and the birds who had flown over the whole world and seen many sights. And finally it seemed that the only way to save the country from the grasp of the evil Witch was to send the whole land and all her people into a deep, deep sleep, in the hopes that the Lion would wake them from it when he came to defeat the Witch. And King Michael proclaimed the news, and all agreed to the plan.

"But the kings and the queens retreated once more to their council chamber, for the Queen Sylvia worried. She said, 'Fair consorts, do you find it the wisest course to wait for the Lion to bring us back to ourselves? For he may not. Would it not be better to forge some failsafe, that we may be sure of recovery?'

"And the Queen Rose said, 'Dear sister, I once sat with the Lion on the longest and darkest night; I know he will not desert us, for he is good and just.'

"But the Queen Sylvia said, 'Even so.' And it was thus decided that the magicians and wise-women would forge a magical device powerful enough to allow someone noble and pure of heart—a true prince—to wake the land, should the Lion fail them.

"And so the whole country sank into a deep, deep sleep, so deep that they neither heard nor felt as the Witch turned the whole of the land into ice and snow and tundra. And she ruled the land for the next hundred years.

"But in the hundredth year, the Lion came once again from the Eastern Sea, and where he swam, the ice floes turned to warm waters, and where he walked the snow melted and turned to irises and daffodils. In a day and a night he had turned the whole of the land to spring again, and he had defeated the Witch in her stronghold and watched her blood flow onto the ground and seep into the dirt. And when he had defeated the Witch, the Lion left again, the same way he had come; and he did not wake the inhabitants, nor did they even sense his presence. Perhaps he meant to release them from their slumber, and merely forgot; perhaps he was punishing them for failing to protect the land he had given them. Perhaps he thought they were happier, dreaming enchanted dreams.

"For another two hundred years, the land languished uninhabited, but in the three hundredth year, it began to be overtaken by men from a land called Telmar. They tilled the soil and built themselves homes and raised livestock and families, and in time they raised a castle and named one of their own king over them. When he died, his son became king, and his son after him, for nine generations; and the eighth's king's son died when his son was a mere boy. And he grew up sitting in council and receiving ambassadors, but his heart was not in it; Caspian was a dreamer, and not a king. And the thing he dreamt of most was a legend: for it was said that, hundreds of years ago, the land had been ruled by two kings and two queens, and that they lay asleep in their castle even now. It was said that the elder of the queens was more beautiful than any living woman, and that if a man were just and noble, he might wake her and win her hand. And so the prince resolved to try, and he set off within a week's time of his sixteenth birthday with a full retinue, determined to seek the queen out.

"Caspian rode through lush meadows for four days and four nights. On the fifth day, he and his men reached a towering forest, the likes of which they had never seen. And the oldest among them said, 'Your Highness, let us turn from these woods and seek greener meadows; for to enter them would be to court death.' And the other men yelled out their agreement.

"But Caspian was a true, brave prince, and he said, 'No, my lord. For is it not said that a knight must never seek safety, but always danger?' And though his men turned back, Caspian plunged on, deeper and deeper into the dark wood. And on the sixth day, when he was so deep among the trees that he could barely see, even at noontime, he heard a distant rumble of thunder. Caspian spurred his horse to a gallop, but in moments the storm was directly overhead, and he was wet to the skin." Susan swallowed and looked around at her rapt audience. Every girl was leaning towards her; even Heather had slid to the floor, where she could sit in comfort. Only Lucy looked discontented. "Caspian rode for hours," Susan continued, "and when he was finally out of the storm, he found himself at the edge of the wood. Everything smelled of salt, and ahead of him was a vast ocean. The horizon was broken only once, by an island; but on that island rose a towering castle, with turrets and flags that fluttered in the breeze.

"Caspian urged his horse through the waves and drew his sword. The whole island seemed surrounded by brambles and branches and a tangle of what he finally realized were apple trees, overgrown and twisted in on themselves. He plucked the nearest apple and bit into it; it was crisp and tart and perfectly ripe.

"The next morning he continued on, his horse picking his way through the tangled mass of apple trees toward the castle. Aside from their labored breathing, the only sound was the calling of gulls, far overhead. Perhaps," Susan allowed, "he should have been more cautious, but Caspian felt in his heart that this was the legendary castle of the kings and queens of old, and so he walked on without fear. And before the sun had set he reached the gate of the castle, which was open; he tied his horse in the courtyard, near the castle well, and continued onwards. He came next upon a guardroom, but the guards were all asleep at their posts; nothing he could do would wake them. So he continued on. And finally he came to a grand council-chamber, where two men and two women sat in splendid clothes. The one closest to Caspian had dark hair that fell to her feet, and when he gazed upon her face he knew she was the queen of legend.

"Caspian bent and kissed her mouth, and she awoke, and the whole castle awoke with her. 'What's all this?' asked the King Michael, and the Queen Rose said, 'Has the Lion come, then, and chased the winter away?' But the King Edward was watching Caspian and Queen Sylvia, and they were watching each other. And finally Queen Sylvia said, 'I think it is this brave knight who has rescued us. What is your name, sir?"

"And Caspian said, 'They call me Caspian, and I am king of this land.' And he told them of the Telmarines, and of the years that had sunk the four rulers and their palace into legend. 'I would give this land back to you,' he said, 'but I do not know that my people will like it; and they say you ruled over animals and trees who spoke and moved like men.' And the King Michael agreed that this was so. And in the next few weeks, the creatures that the kings and queens of old began to return to the Cair—the Talking Beasts, and all manner of birds, the naiads and dryads and river-gods. And the three kings and two queens spent the next months rebuilding their country, teaching the Telmarines to accept the—northerners—and the northerners to accept the Telmarines." No one, aside from Susan and Lucy, seemed to have noticed Susan's slip. But she couldn't bring herself to tell these ordinary, mundane, _little _girls the name of the country she had once ruled as queen.

"And in a year's time Queen Sylvia and King Caspian were married," Susan said, and hesitated. The girls (aside from Lucy) seemed satisfied with this ending—evil vanquished, the rightful rulers restored, a wedding. This was where she _should _end the story.

And yet Susan couldn't do it. Hadn't she done enough whitewashing for these naïve children? Hadn't she given them enough happily-ever-afters? Five monarchs, separated by centuries and by the people they ruled, with nothing to bind them all together—they could not hold. "And the years passed," Susan continued suddenly. "For a time, the five of them ruled wisely, and the country was at peace. But there came a time when King Michael and King Caspian began to argue, and tempers rose higher and higher. It ended with swords drawn in the sacred counsel chamber, and all knew that something had to be done. And so King Michael called them together and spoke. 'Fair consorts,' he said, 'know that it is with a heavy heart but sure will that I summon you here now. For it is now apparent that we cannot continue as we are, but that one must stay here to rule, and the other four must seek their fortunes elsewhere.' And all agreed that it was so.

"'I shall go,' the Queen Rose spoke first. 'For I have long since wondered if I might seek out the Lion, and I believe that if I sail east, I might reach his land. Brother, give to me our strongest and fastest ship, and I shall sail unto the rising sun.' And King Michael nodded his assent.

"'I too shall go,' spoke the King Edward. 'For I have long since realized that whenever a wicked witch appears, she comes from the northwest corner of the world. Give me a hundred of our bravest knights, my brother, and I shall seek the source of these witches and destroy them once and for all.' And King Michael nodded his assent.

"And now the King Michael and the King Caspian stared at each other across the table, for each man thought he had the right to rule. And the Queen Sylvia sat quietly between them. 'Perhaps,' King Edward said finally, 'Sylvia would like to stay.'

"But Queen Sylvia had had enough of court intrigue and bickering noblemen. 'I have heard,' she said slowly, 'that if one sails toward the southern tip of the world, one will find a place where snow never falls and ice never forms, and this is where the stars fall. Brother, I would like to find this place; will you give me a ship and let me sail with Rose until our paths diverge?'

"'What about your husband?' King Michael asked.

"'I would hope,' she answered quietly, 'that he would choose to come with me. But if he will not, then I will go alone.' And for a time all were silent.

"'No,' Caspian said finally. 'No, I have been a fool. I will come with you, Sylvia, and perhaps in ten years' time we will all meet again.' And he embraced his wife. And in a fortnight, the King Edward set out for the wild lands of the northwest with a hundred men. And in another month, Queen Rose and Queen Sylvia and King Caspian set sail in two ships for the eastern and southern rims of the world. And the King Michael lived in his castle, and ruled well; and eventually he married. And they all lived for a good many years and had a great many adventures." Susan leaned back against Lucy's headboard and sighed.

"But did they live happily ever after?" Marjorie asked, after a moment.

"Of course," Susan said. That was how stories were supposed to end.

"Oh, good," Emma said. "I love happy endings." There was a general murmur of agreement, and then Heather offered to walk Susan back to her room. Susan had thought she might sit with Lucy a little longer, but Lucy was frowning at her and Heather _was _the most popular girl in the whole school.

"Sure, Heather, thanks," she said instead, standing and fixing her hair. _Perhaps Lucy will forget about this story_, Susan thought, and she let Heather take her arm as they walked back to Susan's room.

But, of course, Lucy caught up with her the next morning before breakfast. "It wasn't like that with Aslan," she said. "He didn't…it wasn't like that."

Susan sighed and put an arm around her shoulders. "Oh, Lucy," she said. "It was only a story."

"It wasn't," Lucy insisted. "You made Aslan out to be cold and careless and _mean_."

"He took us away from England for fourteen years, Lucy," Susan said quietly. "And then he brought us back and made it like they had never happened, and then he slammed us back into Narnia and everyone we knew was dead. And now I'm never, ever going to go back. I don't know why he did it, Lu, but it hurts all the same."

Lucy stopped in the middle of the hallway to hug her, and Susan let her head drop down to rest on Lucy's shoulder. "I don't know either," Lucy said, "but I know that he wouldn't have done it if it wasn't the best thing for Narnia."

"I hope you're right," Susan whispered.

"I am," Lucy answered, and Susan believed her, because she had not believed her at the Gorge. "Susan?"

"Mm?"

"Why did you want to stay? He wasn't very grand _or _very handsome."

Susan stifled a laugh. "Lucy, that's how fairy tales are supposed to end. The prince brings back the princess and marries her, and they live happily ever after."

"But you kissed him," Lucy protested. "You never even kissed Rabadash."

"I kissed him so he would always remember that Queen Susan of old kissed him," Susan said gently. "Not because I loved him or even because I particularly liked him."

"He liked you," Lucy said after a moment. "He said he wished you had more _time _together."

Susan giggled. "Oh, Lucy. I had older, handsomer suitors when I was queen. So did you, for that matter. Men who did not have such childish tempers. Remember when that Galmian prince came and offered to show you all of the world?"

"He had a ship fitted for me," Lucy said dreamily. "We went for a whole summer, sailing round and round."

"Do you think _you_ could ever be satisfied with Caspian?" Susan asked her. "After all of the men you could have had?"

oOo

The night before Christmas hols, Susan told them stories of feasting and of Father Christmas; in January, she told of Queen Swanwhite, a woman so beautiful that if she happened to glance into a pool, her reflection would shine out of it for a year and a day.

In March, Susan lost her voice for a week, and Lucy took over the storytelling. Her stories were of a beautiful Lion who spoke like a man, and of two queens who rode on his back through the fields, and Susan did her best not to cry.

There was no romance in Lucy's stories, and sometimes good people died.

Just after Easter, Susan finished the story of Aravis, a Calormene princess who ran away from a cruelly arranged marriage and fell in with Shasta, a slave who turned out to be a prince in disguise. It was one of her longest stories yet, and Miss Andrews, who had somehow become aware that something was happening among the girls, had taken to prowling the halls at night; to avoid detection, Susan had split the story into four parts. The fourth, by necessity, was the longest, because it veered off into unknown territory. Susan had no idea what had happened to Aravis and Cor after their first six months in Archenland. She'd thought that would make the story easier to tell, but it somehow made everything harder. She had to actually imagine what they _would _do, instead of simply disguising the truth in a perfect fairy-tale ending. "And they had two children," she finished finally, "a boy and a girl, and the girl's name was Lasaraleen and the boy's name was Lune. And Prince Lune grew to be a wise man, great in council and judgment; and Princess Lasaraleen grew into a beautiful woman, famed for her skills in archery. And she rode with her father and uncle to the wars. And the four of them lived happily ever after."

The room let out a collective breath, and the girls sighed happily. "I wouldn't have named my daughter after that girl, though," Beth said finally. "Even if she did save my life."

"Goodness," Lucy said. "What does someone have to do to earn your love, Beth?"

"I just meant—" Beth began, but Heather interrupted her.

"I say, is that _singing_?" She was looking in the direction of the window. In a moment the room was silent, and the faint sounds of a boy's singing could be heard.

There was a mad (but quiet) dash for the window, and Heather pulled back the curtains and flung up the sash. The faint strains of Vera Lynn's "We'll Meet Again" floated up to them, and Susan, glancing down, could see a boy staring up at the open window. The moonlight reflected off his glasses, and—_Oh, no,_ Susan thought. It was the boy from the train station. The boy who loved solitude so much he apparently used it to spy on girls.

"What do you want?" Heather called out the window. "If you wake Miss Andrews, we'll all be in trouble."

"Phyllis!" he called up. "I want to talk to Phyllis!"

Heather lifted her head and looked around the room. "We don't have a Phyllis here, do we?"

"I don't think so," Susan said, and she felt Lucy start to giggle beside her. "Maybe he means Francis."

"Maybe," Heather agreed. "He's out of luck, though, then, she hasn't been here all term. Hey"—this out the window again—"do you mean Francis?"

"No!" the boy called up. "Phyllis!"

"We don't have a Phyllis!" Heather yelled back.

"I met her at the station!" the boy called up. "She's lonely, like me! Phyllis, can you hear me? _We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when_," he sang. "_But I know we'll meet again—_"

"I told you, there's no Phyllis here!"

"I'm not leaving until I talk to her!" the boy called up once more.

Heather straightened up and surveyed the room. "Well," she said, "_someone's _got to go talk to him, otherwise he'll wake the whole house."

"I think it's romantic," Emma said dreamily. "Imagine a boy coming and singing under your window, just for you."

"Yes," Marjorie returned, "fancy him getting your name wrong when he did it!"

"He doesn't even know her name," Emma continued, still dreamily. "And he came all this way for her."

"Emma," Susan felt compelled to point out, "he lives just across the road." There was a pause, in which Susan realized her mistake. "I mean, I assume so," she amended quickly. "Hendon House is the only boys' school for miles."

"I'll go talk to him," Lucy said in the awkward silence that followed. "I'm the only one who can manage the staircase without creaking. But the rest of you have to go back to your rooms. Miss Andrews already thinks I'm queer, but she'll know something's up if she catches me and the rest of you are watching out the window."

The girls grumbled, but the combined forces of Heather Preston and the two Pevensie girls proved too strong for them. In a moment Susan was standing in the doorway to her own room, watching her sister tiptoe down the stairs. The window in her room, by awful luck (hers or his, she wasn't sure), faced the other way; she would have to wait until the morning to see whether Lucy had managed to put him off.

But her door creaked open within the next hour, and Lucy tiptoed in. "Susan, are you awake?" she whispered.

"Yes, of course," Susan whispered back, shifting in her bed to make room for Lucy. "The other girls have only just dropped off; let's not wake them. Did you get rid of him?"

"Yes," Lucy said, snuggling under Susan's blankets, but then she added, "but I don't know how long he'll stay away."

Susan sighed. "Long enough to find someone else to bother, I hope."

"He did come sing to you," Lucy said reproachfully. "He thought it was your favorite song."  
"I hate that song," Susan said, too embarrassed to admit to her sister that she had sung it all last year, when she still hoped she might get back to Narnia. "And that was just humiliating." Next to her, Lucy sighed. "What's up, Lu? Did you really like him all that much?

"No-o," Lucy said slowly. "It's just that he came and sang to you, and it was a little like—like in Narnia. And I just…it all seems so far away, Susan. What if he's the only one who sings to you here?"

Susan felt for Lucy's shoulders in the dark and put her arm around them. "Then he'll be the only one who sings to me here," she said briskly. "Remember when we were in Narnia, Lu, and that Galmian prince asked for your hand? And we all sat down together, the four of us, to talk about it?" She felt rather than saw Lucy nod. "Remember that Peter said you didn't have to go unless you wanted to—that there would be other men and even if there weren't, you could stay at Cair Paravel forever?"

"I remember," Lucy whispered. "But we're not _in _Narnia. And I couldn't stay at Cair Paravel even if we were."

"That doesn't mean you have to _settle_," Susan hissed. "You can wait for the right man, who will be able to understand about Narnia even if you don't tell him. And if there's no one like that, you don't ever have to find anyone."

"Then I'd be alone," Lucy said slowly.

"Nonsense," Susan said. "You'd still have us. You'll _always _have us. And anyway, Miss Plummer never married, did she? Would you rather be like her or like Mother?"

"Like her, I guess," Lucy said finally.

"That's what I mean," Susan told her. "That's what Narnia gave us. As long as you remember Narnia, you don't have to _settle_, Lucy. You don't have to marry the first man who sings under your window, or…"

"Or someone just because he's very grand and very handsome?" Lucy asked, giggling a little.

"Exactly," Susan answered.

"Can I stay with you tonight?" Lucy whispered.

"Of course," Susan replied. Lucy had crept into Susan's bed for months after they'd returned through the wardrobe, but not at all since Aslan had sent them home. Susan had assumed it was because Lucy hadn't needed her; now, she wondered for the first time if Lucy hadn't wanted to seem babyish. "But you'll have to tell me a story."

"The girls don't like my stories," Lucy protested.

"Because they're true," Susan said. "True stories are never so satisfying as made-up ones. But I like yours better."

"Well, all right," Lucy said finally. "Once," she began, so quietly that Susan had to cuddle very close to her to hear, "there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy…"

oOOo

Notes: This was beta'd by Ill Ame and T. Mad Hatter, with a final read-through by Morohtar. They are fantastic and all credit goes to them--mistakes are obviously my own.

C S Lewis owns everything, except for the characters belonging to the movie people. I'm only borrowing them. The song the Geeky Boy sings is indeed "We'll Meet Again," which was popular back in World War II; the quote from _A Little Princess _is indeed from _A Little Princess_.

Does it drive anyone else insane that the Geeky Kid had no name? I've taken to calling him Cuthbert, the poor child.

Constructive criticism is always welcome!


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